Den of thieves

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Wizardry was not technically illegal in Skrae. It was not very widely practiced either. It could be highly lucrative. There were stringent laws about summoning demons, and the penalty for doing so was inalterable, swiftly meted out, and one hundred percent fatal. Yet other kinds of magic-divination, the infliction and relief of curses, the brewing of love potions and the like-were permitted, and there were plenty of customers for such a trade. The wealthy people of Ness were always looking for an edge, a way to maintain their station, and they would hardly turn their noses up at even the most disreputable worker of miracles. There were easily a thousand men at work in Ness that day who claimed to do magic, and of that number perhaps two or three dozen who could actually match their claims with results. They were all well compensated for the time they spent learning their art.

Yet they were never so numerous as to form a guild. For every child in the Free City learned one fact about thaumaturgy while still very young, and it was enough to keep most of them from pursuing the occult arts. It was this: magic always has a price.

Magicians drew their power from the pit and its infernal inhabitants. By making pacts with demons, they were able to work wonders and marvels beyond human reckoning. Yet in doing so they were exposed to the otherworldly energies of that place of torment, and it changed them.

Vry’s diviner must have spent countless hours peering into his shewstone, looking for secrets. Whatever he found could not be worth what he’d paid for the knowledge. The skin of the left side of his face had thickened and callused until it resembled the bark of an oak, but it was as white as death. Even the bones of his skull must have changed, for his left eye had migrated downward until it stared, lidless, from where his cheekbone should have been. At his chin and along the left side of his neck, tendrils of pink flesh hung down like a ghastly beard. He could not close his mouth on that side-which explained his strange voice-and the teeth behind his altered lips were visible: they had become fused together in a pair of bony plates that didn’t quite meet.

Had he been born like that, the magician would have been doomed to become a beggar, or perhaps a freak in a traveling fair. It was clear from the untouched right side of his face, however, that he had only come to this favor late in life. It must have happened gradually, over time. Malden wondered-when the man saw the first signs of what was to come, why had he not shattered his stone and given up magic altogether?

Perhaps for some the appeal of secrets was too great. The draw of the mysterious and strange. For some, perhaps, the price was not too steep.

When the watchmen stopped murmuring to one another and most had regained the color in their own faces, the magician looked to Vry with his good right eye. “Tell me what you wish to see. It will be revealed.”

Cutbill left his pen lying on his lectern. Even he could not look away.

Anselm Vry turned aside. “Look again, as you did this morning, and see if you can find the crown. It may be in this very room-perhaps if you are closer to it you can see it better.”

The magician nodded and bent over his stone. From the spy hole, Malden had a good view of its polished surface, but he saw no change there. Yet the very air of the office seemed to change, to grow thick as heavy fog. There was a whispering of invisible voices in the room and the flames of the oil lamps were stifled as by bad air.

The magician passed his hand over the stone a number of times, never quite touching the polished face, as if he were exhorting it to better seeing. Eventually, though, he shook his head and gave off. “All is as before. It exists, still, but its location is forbidden me. It is like trying to look for a coin at the bottom of a muddy lake. Occasionally a glimmer is perceived, but it wavers and is gone before I can grasp the image. Perhaps if I try again later in the day, when the etheric currents are less brisk and the stars take different stations in their wheels…”

Vry grunted in frustration. “Never mind. Do something useful this time, and look into that man’s heart,” he said, jabbing one finger toward Cutbill. “Find the lies he has recently spoken, and find the truth behind them.”

Cutbill’s lips compressed into a tight frown, but he did nothing to stop this.

The magician bent over the stone again. He made one quick pass with his hand, then closed his eyes and began to chant. He spoke no words but only moved his lips as alien and ugly sounds came bubbling up from his throat. Then his eyes snapped open and he looked to Vry.

“No lies,” he said.

Vry thundered at the man, “What? He has never told a truth in his misbegotten life! Look again!”

“There is no need,” the magician said. “I tell you, I saw his heart. He has been completely honest with you. He knows not where the crown is, or who might have it.”

“Such a waste, to bend your principles for nothing,” Cutbill said. “You should have listened to me, Vry. I have no reason to lie to you, and nothing to gain from doing so.”

The magician passed his hand across his stone again. One of the oil lamps guttered out and left the room partly in shadow. “This also is the truth,” the magician burbled.

Vry grabbed the stone out of the magician’s hands and stared into it himself. “I see nothing here! This man’s testimony is meaningless.” He threw the stone back at the magician, who caught it as he might a falling baby.

“I say only what I see,” the magician insisted. “Not what you want me to see.”

“Useless! Get out of here. Go back to the palace and read the Burgravine’s fortune for her. That’s the only reason I let you live, you mountebank.”

The magician hurried out of the room without further protest. One watchman went with him as an escort. Once he was gone the lights came back up and the air began to flow in the room once more.

“There,” Cutbill said. “As you see-I am wholly innocent.”